


Say Something

by thealexandriaarchives



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Brain Damaged Jim, Gen, Hurt/Comfort without much Comfort, Post Reichenbach, Sebastian Makes a Terrible Florence Nightingale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 13:30:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1228201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thealexandriaarchives/pseuds/thealexandriaarchives
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The doctors say Jim will likely wake up in four or five weeks, if he ever wakes up at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Say Something

**Author's Note:**

> Title and Inspiration obviously taken from the new song by A Great New World and Christina Aguilera. Mostly just a writer's block drabble.
> 
> Fun Fact of the Day: Chest Compressions in CPR are taught to the tune of Stayin’ Alive. It mimics the beat of a healthy heartbeat.

The doctors say Jim will likely wake up in four or five weeks, if he ever wakes up at all.

Sebastian kicks them all out and keeps the number of the only one who was able to meet his eyes when they told him.

There’s plenty to keep Sebastian busy, even if Jim nearly ran the organization into the ground the last few months. There’s still a hundred jobs a week coming in to organize. It makes him feel like a bloody call center, but it beats listening to the constant fucking beeping from the heart monitors, the rise and fall of the ventilator.

Jim starts breathing on his own more regularly after a week -but the sharp noise from the monitor pierces the flat from under the bedroom door, a miserable beat to the tune of Jim’s favorite song.

He tries turning the monitors off one morning when the montonous beeping starts to give him a migraine. The silence gives him a bloody panic attack after ten minutes.

* * * * * * * * * *

Seb hasn’t left the flat in a month. He orders groceries from every delivery service in town in turn, breaking half a dozen of Jim's security procedures. So the Chinese kid who left a bag of cereal and eggs at the door knows where he lives now. Who gives a shit.

The windows stay barred and closed at all times. The skylight, already bulletproof, has been permanently welded shut, leaving only artificial light to flood through the rooms.

The whole flat stinks like death and decay, the sweat and stress of a hospital ward mixing with the cigarette smoke that’s sunk into the rugs. A desk lamp lights the chair he dragged into the bedroom, and the growing pile of books next to it. His own cheap paperbacks long gone, he’s working his way through Jim’s unique collection of first edition True Crime books. Annotations on idiocy fill the margins in red and make them a far more interesting read.

The monitor beeps on.

* * * * * * * * * *

It occurs to him that he hasn’t been talking to Jim. Normal people would, he supposes - tell him he’s loved, and missed, and urge him to come back to the sound of their voice.

Jim would just mock Sebastian for anything he said - chide him for being sentimental and boring. Fair enough, Seb’s spent enough time with Jim that he knows to shut up when he’s not needed.

It’s bloody quiet though.

* * * * * * * * * *

Jim wakes up in the middle of week eight.

The rhythm of the heart monitor fluctuates - echoing through the bedroom like a giggle at a funeral. Brown eyes flutter calmly open, and focus hazily on the ceiling. He doesn’t speak, not that Sebastian really expects him to.

_There’s a tiny illogical part of him that just expected Jim to bounce out of bed, barking orders and bitching about the smell from a hundred sponge baths and dear **Christ** Tiger his head aches be a good Florence Nightingale and fetch Daddy a horse pill - forcing Seb to wrestle him back to the bed and bury his face in Jim's shoulder and tell him what an asshole he was and how fucking **stupid** can you be shoving a blank in your mouth permanent brain damage is almost-_

A few seconds later the eyes close and he drops back into unconsciousness.

Sebastian doesn’t sleep for two more days, just in case he does it again.

* * * * * * * * *

Jim doesn’t talk.

It’s been two months, and he eats and walks and uses the bathroom on his own, but he still doesn’t talk.

Doesn’t do much of anything, really. Just sits around until Sebastian tells him it’s time to eat or drink or sleep. Seb's started putting cartoons on just to make Jim’s blank stares less creepy, but even the psychotic world-domineering laughter of  _Invader Zim_ doesn’t get a response.

“Jim?”

He responds to his name now. That’s something. Almost on level with a rather stupid dog.

“Come eat your lunch.”

Strained peas. Baby food. But fuck it, if Jim wanted to blast away half his soft palate, he doesn’t get to complain now that he gets nutrition over flavor.

Not that Seb would mind if he did.

* * * * * * * * *

Three more months, and Seb’s losing patience.

This thing, whoever, whatever it is, isn’t Jim.

It watches everything, like a baby trying to understand the fucked up catastrophe that is the world, but finding it as interesting as grey paint drying on a concrete wall.

That gave Sebastian hope for a while, until he realized that the bland boredom came paired not with anger and frustration, but with simple acceptance. The world is boring, and water is wet.

Seb’s starting to miss the heart monitor. He’s not even sure this thing’s alive, let alone Jim.

* * * * * * * * * *

It stares at Sebastian while he sleeps sometimes, like a baby bird waiting for its mother. That creeps him out in a way Jim's examinations never did.

He wants to backhand it hard across the face, punch it between those empty doe-eyes; just to see any kind of primal emotion take the place of that hollow stare. He wants to watch it feel fear for the first time as it recognizes its protector has been a predator all along; or even shock at something changing in its quiet little world.

He likes to imagine pain would jolt something of Jim back into place, that he would crack a smile or hit back.

Or maybe hitting it would just be the brain trauma that broke the camel's back. Maybe make it shut down entirely.

Might be worth a shot.

* * * * * * * * * *

Seb puts a semi-automatic to its forehead one morning.

It doesn’t smirk like Jim would, daring him to pull the trigger, but knowing he never would, but it doesn’t look afraid either. It just sits there patiently, watching him.

He lets it live.

What the fuck else has he got to do with his shit-stain of a life besides watch it?

* * * * * * * * * *

Almost a year after Jim put a bullet in his mouth and pulled the trigger, Sebastian gives up.

He leaves.

He goes to a cafe, orders a full English breakfast, and sits outside smoking cigarette after cigarette - relishing the nervous and disdainful looks he gets from passersby.

For a week after that he wanders the city doing the things he hasn't done in months. Gets a shave, buys a pretty new knife, fucks a few women in hotel rooms that don't smell like the grave, trying to figure out what the fuck he's going to do with his newfound freedom.

With the nagging feeling of a huge loose end, he ends up trudging up the stairs to a luxury flat above Conduit Street.

Head filled with images of a dead body propped in front of the TV where he left it, or curled in a ball in the kitchen with an empty box of cereal, he pushes open the door.

Maybe it will just be gone, loose on the streets of London. Or Maybe it's been kidnapped by competitors wanting to extract information from it. Best of luck to them. It'd be like squeezing water from a stone.

Beretta at his side, Sebastian makes his way through the silent rooms of the flat, finally pushing open the door to the master bathroom.

It's sitting in the bathtub, wrapped in the same worn sweats he'd dressed it in the last time he'd seen it, its arms are wrapped around its knees.

He flicks the light on, and it turns to look at him, same blank gaze drilling into the back of his skull.

The click of the pistol's hammer echoes off the marble tile.

Cracked lips open and a hoarse whisper shatters the quiet.

"Did you miss me?" 


End file.
